I think these security fears about windows XP no longer being "supported" are way overblown -- keep your internet *applications* updated and don't be stupid, and I think users of XP are going to be safe indefinitely, with nothing to worry about.

Having said that -- I held out upgrading from windows XP to Windows 7 for quite some time and I can say that minus some minor quibbles, I have been very pleasantly surprised with Windows 7 and would heartily recommend it to everyone.

I imagine there might be a lot of people like me for whom their XP machine is not their primary machine but their netbook or laptop (my main PC is Win7). It doesn't have the specs to be upgraded to Win7 or 8.

I just find MS's move annoying. It certainly won't push me to rush out and buy a Win8 netbook/laptop/tablet. If anything, this move is more likely to prompt such people to explore alternative OS's such as Linux or ChromeOS (as Deozaan also said above).

But I guess MS is after small businesses. Though even they may consider adopting Chromebooks or Chromeboxes as a result.

I think these security fears about windows XP no longer being "supported" are way overblown -- keep your internet *applications* updated and don't be stupid, and I think users of XP are going to be safe indefinitely, with nothing to worry about.

Indefinitely seems a bit optimistic. I'll give it a year before anything really wild happens, because people will initially be trying everything to fortify their now "officially" antique systems...and it takes time to get sloppy. I think anyone out there with a currently known XP exploit will sit on it for at least 6 months - hay there's no rush now... - to maximize its effectiveness.

MS's almost comical at times harbinger of doom EOL warnings remind my of the Blood on the Highway driver's Ed. films from the 70s. But I've always liked comparing the Information Highway to an Interstate Highway, so... much like back then...some folks get the point, and others just need a good shock to blast them out of their lethargy.

Hell I've still got a few Windows 2000 test systems that I refuse to part with either.

the day has arrived! support for the persistent WinXP has officially ended. Anyone here going to defy Microsoft and keep using winxp?...

I have no intent to "defy" Microsoft ... for me it's 180 degrees from "sticking it to the man". Instead, I'm part of the category that tremendously respects Linux but gave up attempting to convert for anything but maybe a special use case.

My personal history: A. My "teeth cutting" machine was the Commodore 128, which was a perfect sweet spot between age 8 per the C64 which I gave up on as being too hard, and age 13 when I received the C128 a little after it released.

My father was savvy enough to jump into the Mac "paradigm" soon after they began appearing, so I got some important early experience with that GUI which sure enough became "the future".

In 1999 I received a Win98 machine as part of non-cash compensation for a project, and it was the first "Modern Windows" machine I had, which I treated as basically "Win95 SP1 with fewer bugs". A few years later I had a friend build a cut-rate Win2000 machine, but from my user experience as "promising novice" that also felt like "Win95 SP2" with even fewer bugs.

Then about 2007 with a little spare money from a good job, I began to think ahead with that same buddy about the future of Windows. By that point all the early "Longhorn" hope/mania had faded. The key story (via Paul Thurrott's version I think), was that at some crucial moment "one day at Microsoft", "Longhorn on the XP codebase died". Wiki's summary includes "...The original Longhorn, based on the Windows XP source code, was scrapped, and Longhorn's development started anew, building on the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 codebase".

There are some really nice people at the lower levels of MS out of the limelight. One day I'd really like to ask around and try to get "the history of that day". Probably some middle manager can authorize an interview this late in the game. I'm sure there were rumblings internally for years, but there has to be one key engineer's final report that then forced the top level executive official public decision. It would be awesome to get a copy of that report for official posterity because this is THE premier place where you gang can enjoy ripping into it!

But by then some of the very early rumblings about Vista's famous problems were floating in. Not counting that first Win98 machine, I've been a late adopter, having previously learned a little about the woes of both Win Me and very early Win XP pre-SP2. But by 2007 Win XP SP3 had long since been cleaned up and became the standard OS today. So then on the hardware side I forecasted very well and spent the extra funds going for the first Kentsfield QuadCore with two Terabyte Drives.

My nickname was also picked very well... "Twilight". Today that nickname became official: I would ride out XP "until it officially died" waiting to see what the future would bring far down, to get the late-adopter's hindsight opinion once again. (Marketing is Hype - intended to create "This Year's Sales". But the truth tends to show up about a year later.)

Meanwhile I am *terrified* of the total cost of a real upgrade on my hardware. (Note my monitor is going to die any week now!) So I am hanging on tight with my best visionary thinking of 2007 on the Twilight project machine. Now I'm not happy at all being "officially out of support" for XP.

Here are the options as I see them: Part 1: Temp use of XP for a while to buy more time. Part 2a: Hope that the new engineering oriented CEO Satya Nadella is the next Dave Cutler and does a stunning job on Windows 9, then strip it aka turn off Aero/whatever and hope my comp can run it. Then I use my spare sorta-unused drive as a Dual Boot to test it. Part 2b: Then if that simply does not work, get a copy of Windows 7 from somewhere which I *think* will run if I did my specs right, and then give up for a few more years. By the time *that* dies, I'll be content to let my 2006 machine go with a sincere "RIP and oh gawd thank you" in favor of something from 2016ish. Part 3: Hunker down and reload the best 30% of the programs I experimented with, with a list of what the others used to be, and call it a day. (The soft data is easy, courtesy of that "backup" program with the funny name from here.)

Whew! Fortunately you gang are not scared of as long post. But I'm a little emotional here, because this is THE moment I have been watching for my entire modern computing life!

I think these security fears about windows XP no longer being "supported" are way overblown -- keep your internet *applications* updated and don't be stupid, and I think users of XP are going to be safe indefinitely, with nothing to worry about.

Having said that -- I held out upgrading from windows XP to Windows 7 for quite some time and I can say that minus some minor quibbles, I have been very pleasantly surprised with Windows 7 and would heartily recommend it to everyone.

I imagine there might be a lot of people like me for whom their XP machine is not their primary machine but their netbook or laptop (my main PC is Win7). It doesn't have the specs to be upgraded to Win7 or 8.

I just find MS's move annoying. It certainly won't push me to rush out and buy a Win8 netbook/laptop/tablet. If anything, this move is more likely to prompt such people to explore alternative OS's such as Linux or ChromeOS (as Deozaan also said above).

I imagine there might be a lot of people like me for whom their XP machine is not their primary machine but their netbook or laptop is (my main PC is Win7).

very good point -- and those machines are completely fine to leave running win xp, imho.

But neither do I think the concerns are hogwash either. My machine is not going to fall over dead today, but it can't last forever either. However my opinion of Win7 is that it doesn't offer anything stunning to force a switch anytime soon. Rather, per my plan above, it's my "failsafe" for a much later decision. I see it more as a "Turbo XP and Not-Win8"!

The question of laptops/netbooks is fascinating though. Whatever I do on my project machine, it IS useful to have a fun little laptop for trips on the road, but you don't really care if an Act Of Nature kills it. So then if it's only on say 30 days a year, then I think XP can stay there indefinitely because I'd only be running about 10 programs and not experimenting all day like a mad scientist! I have a "decent amount of sense". Especially on that laptop, except for a little "Rule 34" browsing, the only news I'd really be scared of is if some devastating new exploit shows up that can smash XP to smithereens on a pure "out of the blue" attack.

However, I've given up on Linux. Too many little subtle apps and a couple of killer ones are on Windows. And I just don't have the chops to mess with those VM's and stuff.

Seriously, set one up fully loaded with the stuff you use most, take a snapshot, and have at it. Save your files to a USB key. If your virtual XP ever does corrupt or get infected, just shut it down and reload it.

Of more concern to me than "OhMyGawd XP is dead" is that MS says they're not going to support XP's copy of MS Security Essentials. So I *am* interested if anyone has reviewed those other threads about alternate AntiVirus/Security suites. (P.s. where *was* that thread?) Forgive me for asking instead of "ReadingTheManuals", but I'm a little behind on where BitDefender stacks up. But it's also nice to have "local opinion" esp since A, sometimes there's bias in those studies, and B, some of you serve clients and would only recommend what you think is the best.

So heh topic for a poll! For people serving clients, what AV suite have you recommended alternate to MsSecEss in the past on its own merits, and/or now that MsSecEss is dead too, is your next forward choice? (Does anyone want to set that up? I don't know the code for that.)

Hmm, I was looking at this nasty red box. So I don't doubt you, but it's at least a bit disingenuous on MS's part to "not support" it but behind the scenes only if you know what article to look at, to actually ... support it?

Microsoft has also stopped providing Microsoft Security Essentials for download on Windows XP. If you already have Microsoft Security Essentials installed, you will continue to receive antimalware signature updates for a limited time

@Tao - I tend to avoid suites and just install what I need. That said I've used BitDefender AV and found it to be a very capable. YMMV. However, I have several clients with organization-wide deployments of BD that feel the same way about it. And they all have sufficient budgets that cost wasn't a significant factor in making their final selection.

There are at least 5 machines in my care that will run XP until the day they die.

3 of these are industrial control solutions, relying on proprietary hardware and software that was only ever supported under Windows XP. They literally cannot be upgraded beyond what PC I can construct to carry that OEM interface board, and the software is forever tied to XP.

The other two are simply old machines in secondary roles. I keep them around for compatibility, and they will continue to use XP until hardware failure ends them.

@Tao - I tend to avoid suites and just install what I need. That said I've used BitDefender AV and found it to be a very capable. YMMV. However, I have several clients with organization-wide deployments of BD that feel the same way about it. And they all have sufficient budgets that cost wasn't a significant factor in making their final selection.

Fair enough!

So I'll probably go work on that coupon before it runs out to buy myself time. It would be nice to get a chip-in from a couple others though, just for perspective.

EDIT: I'm "skimming not reading" per another recent Slashdot post. So I didn't look at the date. So okay, I'll go look for those review articles. One of the ones mentioned with the unusual heuristic algorithm caught my eye as being interesting.

I really enjoy pairing off Slashdot and DC. DC's Signal-to-Noise is way better, but Slashdot gets the volume and one fun "little hobby" (call out to xkcd!) is to "commission" something by hitting a really fast but decent little post way at the top of the chain before the snarks bog it down. This is this month's gem:

A long long time ago,I can still remember how that NT kernel made me smile.And I knew that if I had my chance,I'd write a helluva lot cool VB 6 apps.And maybe my manager would be happy for a while.

But April made me shiver,With each Win 8 PC I'd deliver.Bad news in the staffroom steps.And I couldn't take one more step.

I can't remember if I cried,When I read about some XP user heaved a sigh.But something touched me deep inside.The day Windows XP died.

So bye bye Windows XP has died.Rode my Segway to the to the levy,But the levy was dry.And good ol' sysadmins were drinking coffee and Sprite,Singing "This is the day Windows XP has died,This is the day Windows XP has died."

Microsoft has basically adopted the ransomware model widely used by criminal hacking groups and increasingly popular with some allegedly legitimate cloud storage firms.

Microsoft will continue to provide support for governments and large institutions willing to pay huge sums to keep large numbers of XP systems safe for the next few years.

So Microsoft will continue to write the necessary patches and provide them to those who can afford to pay their extortion, but it will not provide them to the rest of us, even though it would cost them next to nothing to make them available for download by everyone.

That doing so endangers everyone on the Internet matters not one whit to them.

Microsoft has basically adopted the ransomware model widely used by criminal hacking groups and increasingly popular with some allegedly legitimate cloud storage firms.

Microsoft will continue to provide support for governments and large institutions willing to pay huge sums to keep large numbers of XP systems safe for the next few years.

So Microsoft will continue to write the necessary patches and provide them to those who can afford to pay their extortion, but it will not provide them to the rest of us, even though it would cost them next to nothing to make them available for download by everyone.

That doing so endangers everyone on the Internet matters not one whit to them.

I have had a number of phones calls today from worried customers when they got the "scareware" = "extortion" pop up on their screen.

MS have effectively infected their XP systems with malware deliberately!!

Does anyone know if there is an easy way to turn it off? I found two scheduled processes to keep the popup going but deleting those processes doesn't stop the popup - I suspect the dregs of Windows Update (from now on I'll call it Windows Infect on XP systems). Does turning off Windows update stop them?

Personally I think many people may be better off without MS updates - they often caused more grief than they cured!

My approach to customers is make sure you have a good AV running and buy a copy of Malwarebytes Antimalware and install it to run in the background all the time. Download Google Chrome or Firefox and never use IE.

This was all good advice in the past anyway so nothing has really changed.

The question that doesn't have a clear answer is will MS be bribing vendors to remove driver support and software support (esp. AV) for XP ? Or are security suites in to make a killing?

Microsoft has basically adopted the ransomware model widely used by criminal hacking groups and increasingly popular with some allegedly legitimate cloud storage firms.

Microsoft will continue to provide support for governments and large institutions willing to pay huge sums to keep large numbers of XP systems safe for the next few years.

It may really more like:

Microsoft will continue to provide support for governments and large institutions to keep large numbers of XP systems safe from being reformatted and having Linux installed on them for the next few years until it gets its head out of its butt and makes Windows 8 look and work just like Windows 7 does.

Now here is something interesting that maybe those that plan on sticking with XP should know:

Quote

Microsoft will produce Windows XP updates for much longer than April 2014. The last official updates for Windows 2000 were released last year, 3 years after EOL, and were distributed inside the monthly security ISO update packages. Apart from that, a few more non-public official updates were leaked.

In case of Windows XP I'd expect at least regular official updates until July 2015 (when Windows 2003 is becoming EOL). After April you should definitely check the monthly ISOs available under this link:

Just keep in mind that Microsoft will not mention the existence of those updates in their official news channels. As in case of Windows 2000, the updates can be found inside those ISO packages even though Windows 2000's name itself isn't listed there at all.

More than that, due to the fact that Windows XP is much more popular than Windows 2000, I'm 99% sure that a lot of non-public updates will be leaked as well.

There are some other interesting things in that thread, as well, such as the idea of adapting updates to Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 (based on XP, which will still receive extended support till April 2019) for use in regular XP.

Keep in mind that there are still people out there running 98/ME/2k and their world hasn't melted down, yet, and in many cases they have been able to get the latest security patches through other means, hacked to work with their outdated OSs. There will be nothing to stop XP users from joining them and waiting for the patches for currently supported versions of Windows to be ripped apart and tested to see what can be put together for them, and the bunch of 98/ME/2k users that are still sticking with their old faithful OS. XP users are actually in a better position than the 9x users, since even the latest supported versions are NT based, just like XP, making it much easier to hack a patch for it.

And if you want to see what the future of XP holds, ask the 2k users that didn't upgrade, what their main issues are:

1) trying to run an older OS on newer hardware and trying to find drivers that work, or2) trying to run newer software on the older OS, or3) being restricted to older browsers which do not support newer features so accessing things like Flash or YouTube no longer work.

They are not crying about security problems. #2 & #3 were my main issues with running WinME, back in 2008, and would most likely still be my main issues if I were to take that PC out of retirement, with an entirely different issue not even on that list, if I were to try to get it online via anything but dialup. (same issue I had back in 2008, having to replace a combo modem & soundcard with both a NIC & soundcard via a bridge board soldered into an ISA slot, for which the PCI slots on it are disabled at the hardware level, by the manufacturer, leaving only 1 working ISA slot on the board to work with. If I could get past that, I'd likely then have to deal with issue #1)